The Top 5 (Non-Local-ish) #FWMF Shows

Fort Worth Music Festival is tonight (Friday) and tomorrow at Panther Island Pavilion (395 Purcey St., near downtown), and in addition to all the great headliners (Lucinda Williams, Jimmy Eat World, Billy F. Gibbons, The Airborne Toxic Event) and Fort Worthians (Quaker City Night Hawks, Foxtrot Uniform, Ice Eater, Patriot), there’s a slew of touring and not-so-local talent that are well worth the price of admission ($32-90).

1.) When Tim Locke says you need to check out a band, you do. And it was two years ago over beers at South By Southwest when the Calhoun frontman raved about Air Review, a five-year-old Dallas quartet specializing in an idiosyncratic amalgam of folk, electronica, and indie-rock. And there’s definitely also a Calhoun-type of pop grandeur on display, most readily on Air Review’s last album, 2013’s Low Wishes. The band is currently working on its next record.

2.) The music is mind-blowing. It’s not pyrotechnical or bombastic, just intricately arranged and performed. Having put out four full-lengths and an EP, Austin’s Quiet Company harks back to ’90s indie-pop luminaries such as Blinker the Star and Modest Mouse, blending jangly acoustics with soaring, ringing electrics over inventive rock beats, everything united by sumptuous vocal melodies and the occasional Beatles-esque choral refrain.

3.) Dallas singer-songwriter Ronnie Fauss does that rowdy, jangly C&W thing to a T, but he’s just as good lowering the volume, slowing the tempo, and delivering a real heartbreaker. There ain’t no twang in his tuneage, but if you catch him in a shit-kicking mood, I defy you to not two-step with your best lady/man friend. Cheers.

4.) Aaron Behrens & The Midnight Stroll’s gritty, rollicking, rocking and rolling music might not be what you’d expect from the frontman of the disco-happy Ghostland Observatory. But like Ghostland’s bumping tuneage, The Midnight Stroll’s sound is unique, undoubtedly an apt reflection of the Austin creator’s wild brain.

5.) Dallas-based Team’s got a lot going on. The twinkling guitarwork calls to mind Foals while the tribal drums and occasional group vocals seem very Vampire Weekend-like, but Caleb Turman and Rico Andradi also have a radio-friendly sensibility that seems to escape their influences. Team’s latest recording, Good Morning, Bad Day, has just come out, and it’s a real treat. As often as Turman and Andradi can sound twee, they can also blow the lid off the joint.

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